The UK government must double down on its clean energy drive to protect bill payers from increasingly volatile fossil fuel markets in the wake of the US-Israel war on Iran, climate groups, academics and energy experts have warned.
Research published on Thursday shows that the last fossil fuel energy crisis, caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, cost the EU and the UK $1.8tn between 2022 and 2025, driving up bills and fuelling a devastating cost of living crisis.
The US-Israeli attacks on Iran, which started at the weekend, have resulted in fossil fuel prices surging again. Experts say it underscores the need for the UK to end its dependance on such an unstable energy source.
Bob Ward, from the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics, warned the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and subsequent surge in oil and gas prices “could translate into significantly higher energy bills for British households and consumers”.
“The UK is vulnerable to the volatility of international fossil fuel markets, and the only way to protect ourselves from these price increases is by speeding up the transition to domestic supplies of clean energy, namely renewables and nuclear power.”
Ed Miliband says the latest conflict in the Middle East is ‘another reminder that the only route to energy security and sovereignty for the UK is to get off our dependence on fossil fuel markets’. Photograph: Adriano Machado/Reuters
The UN’s climate chief, Simon Stiell, said the latest upheaval in the Middle East “shows yet again that fossil fuel dependence leaves economies, businesses, markets and people at the mercy of each new conflict or trade policy lurch.”.
He added: “There is a clear solution to this fossil fuel cost chaos – renewables are now cheaper, safer and faster-to-market, making them the obvious pathway to energy security and sovereignty.”
Research published on Thursday by the Transition Security Project showed that the 2022 energy shock had cost the UK and the EU $1.8tn and left governments increasingly dependent on imports of liquid natural gas from the US, giving Donald Trump a stranglehold over EU and UK energy supplies.
The study found the rising costs came through higher household and business energy bills and from the cost of government policies such as price caps, rebates and tax cuts, which aimed to softened the direct impact on consumers of the fossil fuel crisis.
Kevin Cashman, author of the report, said the 2022 energy crisis “presented a fork in the road for Europe – double down on volatile fossil fuel markets, or pivot to homegrown clean energy and greater security”.
“The failure to do the latter has left people on ordinary incomes paying the price for an irresponsible and shortsighted energy policy,” he said.
Khem Rogaly, co-director at the Transition Security Project, said European leaders had prioritised their relationship with the US over the needs of their citizens after the 2022 energy crisis. “Instead of clinging on to a broken transatlantic partnership, Europe needs to develop an independent foreign policy based on international solidarity, restraint and climate collaboration.”
Earlier this week, eight former energy ministers wrote an open letter to the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, urging the government to reverse its ban on new oil and gas licences in the North Sea and give the green light to two new fields, Rosebank and Jackdaw.
But experts say such a move would do nothing to reduce energy bills, improve energy security, protect fossil fuel jobs in the long term or reduce the UK’s reliance on fossil fuel imports. It would also be a significant blow to efforts to fight the climate crisis and reduce emissions.
A blaze caused by debris from an intercepted drone at an oil refinery hub in Fujeirah, UAE, on Wednesday. Photograph: EPA
The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said on Wednesday that the latest conflict in the Middle East was “yet another reminder that the only route to energy security and sovereignty for the UK is to get off our dependence on fossil fuel markets, whose prices we do not control, and onto clean homegrown power we do”.
He added: “The Tories and Reform have opposed our clean energy mission at every turn. They have learned nothing from their own failures during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which landed us with the biggest cost of living crisis in generations due to our exposure to fossil fuels. The North Sea will continue to play an important role in our energy mix for decades to come, but new exploration licences won’t take a penny off bills.”
Tessa Khan, the executive director of Uplift, said the “oil and gas industry, and its political cheerleaders, were peddling a fantasy”. She said new fields such as Rosebank would do nothing to protect UK households from the inevitable price shocks caused by war in the Middle East.
“Rosebank is an oilfield whose reserves, if developed, would be exported – like 80% of all UK oil. It contains minimal gas. In the best case, it would provide just one per cent of UK gas demand. Like all North Sea production, it would do nothing to lower our energy bills.”
Khan pointed out that even if the UK continued to develop new fields, it would still become almost entirely dependent on gas imports by 2050, due to the declining oil and gas reserves in the North Sea basin, leaving bill payers and businesses “hugely exposed to price shocks for decades to come. All this while the nation sits on some of the best wind resources in the world”.
She added: “This is not the first time we have seen the gas price soar off the back of conflict and it will not be the last. We need this government to urgently learn the lessons of the past five years – that the UK’s dependence on oil and gas is making us all poorer – and instead free us from fossil fuels by doubling down on renewables and upgrading homes.”
